


Remedial Handcuff Etiquette

by onemechanicalalligator



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Canon Autistic Character, Episode: s05e07 Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality, Gen, Meltdown, Mild Blood, Self-Harm, Stimming, Verbal Abuse, i think i covered everything, shutdown, this is really hard to describe through tags whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28597872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemechanicalalligator/pseuds/onemechanicalalligator
Summary: “I know what it feels like when people try to control me,” Abed says flatly, trying to stay in the present, to get a grip on himself. “You should know it never goes their way.” Hickey is going to think it’s a threat, but it’s actually a warning.Yet another re-imagining of the Abed/Hickey interaction inBondage and Beta Male Sexuality.
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir
Comments: 32
Kudos: 136





	Remedial Handcuff Etiquette

His plan is to crash the premiere of the _Kickpuncher_ reboot dressed as Classic Kickpuncher, and Abed hates changing plans after they’re already made. It’s bad enough that Troy isn’t with him, that Abed finds himself staring at Troy’s empty chair in the study room while he gets his costume together, feeling his absence acutely. Now he’s in Hickey’s office, and he’s made a mistake, and there’s foam everywhere, and he just wants to get out of here and go to his movie. 

He flinches involuntarily when Hickey grabs his arm, fingers digging in. The second the handcuff clicks around his wrist, Abed knows what’s going to happen, and he doesn’t want it to. _Don’t do this,_ he snaps at himself inside his head. _For once in your life, get a hold of yourself and keep it together._ He already knows, though, that it’s useless, that it’s only a matter of time.

He stays stiff and straight as Hickey rants about consequences, asks him if he’s ever been grounded or punished, if he knows what it feels like to be refused something. Abed thinks about missing out on going to film school because he couldn’t stop himself from warning strangers about _The Phantom Menace._ He remembers getting grounded as a kid for spitting out his broccoli because the texture in his mouth startled him, and getting his movie theater privileges taken away because he couldn’t stop fidgeting and rocking in his seat.

“I know what it feels like when people try to control me,” Abed says flatly, trying to stay in the present, to get a grip on himself. “You should know it never goes their way.” Hickey is going to think it’s a threat, but it’s actually a warning.

On the outside, Abed knows he appears calm. He keeps his face carefully blank and tries to take deep breaths. He doesn’t like feeling trapped, he doesn’t like being stuck here, it reminds him of being shoved in a locker in junior high school, of watching himself make the same mistakes over and over and not understanding what to do differently, of not knowing how to fix anything. It reminds him of standing on the sidewalk outside of Greendale and watching Troy pull away on the _Childish Tycoon._

“For five years I have watched people walk around on your eggshells,” Hickey is saying, and Abed thinks he’s right, and for as much as it seems to annoy Hickey, Abed is willing to bet it annoys him ten times more. He doesn’t _ask_ his friends to act like he could freak out or break at any time, they just do. Because he _has_ freaked out and broken in front of them, multiple times. And there’s no coming back from that, and it’s humiliating to be reminded of it over and over again.

 _Troy didn’t act that way,_ Abed thinks, and then he bites hard on the inside of his cheek to try to distract himself from that train of thought.

Hickey rambles on about hamburgers or cookies or something, and at this point, Abed is only really picking up bits and pieces.

“You think I’m spoiled?” he finally manages to say, and the handcuff feels like it’s digging into his wrist, and he can smell the floral scent from the foam on Hickey’s desk, and it’s so strong, and the Kickpuncher costume is starting to feel suffocating, the cardboard parts rubbing painfully against his body and the fabric scratching at his skin. _This is bad,_ he thinks. _This is very, very bad._

Hickey is _still_ talking, and Abed isn’t listening, because his voice is so grating, it’s just one thing on top of all the other things, and he instinctively tries to pull his hands up to cover his ears, but his right arm is still cuffed to the file cabinet, and it makes a jarring metallic sound when he pulls at it, sending a shot of pain through his arm, and that’s the final straw.

Inside his head is a relentless litany of _Troy’s gone. No one is coming for you. Troy’s gone. No one is coming for you. Troy’s gone. No one is coming for you._

He bends at the waist so he can reach and then presses both palms over his ears, and it’s awkward and weird and makes everything worse. Every part of him is screaming to _run,_ to _get out of here,_ but he can’t, he’s stuck, _he’s actually, physically stuck, he’s locked, locked, locked,_ and he bites harder on his cheek to try and keep from screaming. He squeezes his eyes shut and moves his hands up to his hair, gathering handfuls in his fists and pulling.

A pair of hands, presumably Hickey’s, grab Abed’s own and wrestle them out of his hair. Abed yanks his hands away from Hickey’s touch and pushes as far away from him as he can, which isn’t far at all, and then he lunges forward and slams his head into the file cabinet, _once, twice, three times._ He’s vaguely aware of Hickey yelling at him to stop, but Abed doesn’t pay much attention, just tries to twist out of his grasp when he feels Hickey’s hands on him. Abed doesn’t know how else to convey that _he does not want to be touched._

Now Abed can hear himself screaming, and he hates it, he hates himself for being like this, but he can’t help it, he’s so scared and frustrated and trapped and alone, and he’s missing his movie, which he was going to in honor of Troy, and Troy’s gone, and everything hurts, and it’s all so, so bad and wrong, and how did everything get _this_ wrong _this_ fast?

He lets himself get lost in his thoughts, lets himself be consumed by them, and tunes out everything else. He’s vaguely aware, at a certain point, that he’s stopped moving. That he’s stopped screaming. And then he switches off completely.

* * *

Buzz has no plans to indulge the kid when he starts acting crazy. _This must be what he does to get his way,_ he thinks, and he watches as Abed pulls on his cuffed wrist and then bends over, dressed in his stupid costume, throwing his hands over his ears. He won’t stop _moving,_ twisting frantically, his eyes shut. He looks like he’s having some kind of fit.

After a couple of minutes of this Buzz turns away, headed back to his desk, figuring he’ll just wait it out. He’ll have to get tired of his tantrum sometime. Buzz does glance back at him one more time, though, and that’s when he sees him start pulling his hair, grabbing at it and yanking, and without thinking, he turns back to Abed and takes his hands, removing them from his hair.

Abed recoils like he’s been burned, stumbling backward to get away but still attached to the file cabinet, so he can’t go very far. His eyes flash briefly open, and they’re red and frightened, pupils dilated. The next thing Buzz knows, Abed is slamming his head into the file cabinet over and over, blood starting to drip from a cut on his forehead. It happens so fast, and Buzz hollers at him to stop, reaches to grab him, and Abed twists out of the way, moving awkwardly and desperately to get away.

That’s when he starts to scream, his voice pained and shrill, and he’s wringing his hands, the cuffed one slamming repeatedly into the file cabinet, and there’s still blood dripping down his head and onto his cheek. He screams and screams, and Buzz doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know if he should call someone, if he should uncuff Abed, if he can even get that close to him. He’s starting to worry a little, trying to tune out the noise and figure out what to do, when suddenly the noise just stops.

He looks up to see that Abed is now standing perfectly still, perfectly silent, staring straight ahead. He doesn’t move or speak or blink, he doesn’t reach up to wipe off his face. He doesn’t even yank on the handcuffs. He looks frozen.

“Abed?” Buzz says gruffly.

Abed doesn’t respond. 

Buzz tries again: “Hey, kid, you okay?”

Nothing.

Buzz can’t decide if this is part of the tantrum or something new, if Abed is trying to manipulate him somehow or if there’s actually something wrong with him. 

“Look,” he says. “I’ll uncuff you, okay? You can get cleaned up and go to your movie.”

No response.

“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have cuffed you.”

Abed continues to stare straight ahead, making no indication that he can hear Buzz at all.

After 10 or so minutes of this, he starts to get legitimately worried. He doesn’t know what to do with Abed, how to get him out of his office, how to turn him back into a human again. He curses the whole situation as he finally picks up his phone and makes a call.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end sounds like it’s somewhere busy, maybe at a bar or a party.

“Winger?” Buzz barks. “This is Buzz Hickey.”

“Oh,” says Winger, sounding surprised. “Uh, hi. What’s up?”

“I have your friend here in our office,” Buzz says, cutting right to the chase. “He’s frozen and refuses to communicate with me. I can’t get him to move or leave or do anything. Got any advice?”

“Abed’s there?” Winger asks, his voice a mix of concern and suspicion. “Why is he in the office? What happened before he froze?”

“It’s a long story. We, ah, got in a little disagreement. I...may have handcuffed him to a file cabinet.”

 _“You what?”_ shouts Winger, and the volume of his voice startles Buzz. There’s the sound of a door closing, and suddenly the background noise is gone. “Is he still handcuffed?”

“...Yes,” Buzz admits after a short pause.

“Uncuff him _right now,”_ Winger snaps. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”

“You don’t have to--” Buzz starts to say, but the line is already dead.

Buzz takes the key from his desk drawer and walks over to Abed. He carefully uncuffs him and Abed’s hand drops straight down to his side like he has no control over it. Buzz puts the handcuffs and the key back in his drawer and pulls out a first aid kit, which he takes over to Abed. He cleans the blood off his face, puts antiseptic ointment over the cut, and bandages it. Abed doesn’t even flinch when he rubs an alcohol pad over the broken skin.

When he’s done, Buzz goes back to his desk and waits for Winger. 

* * *

Jeff pulls into the parking lot at Greendale and runs quickly into the building, first stopping at the study room where, as expected, he finds Abed’s messenger bag. He brings that with him and then jogs the rest of the way to his office. 

When he enters, he finds Hickey sitting at his desk and Abed in his Kickpuncher costume, standing next to the file cabinet and staring straight ahead. There’s a white bandage on his forehead. 

The first thing Jeff does is grab his own desk chair and pull it over to where Abed is standing. 

“Hey, Abed,” he says softly, unsure if Abed can hear him. “I brought you a chair. I’m gonna try to make you a little more comfortable, okay?” 

Jeff gingerly directs Abed’s hand toward the chair so he can feel it, and then he helps Abed sit. 

“I’m going to take off some of this cardboard,” he continues, and then carefully removes some of the cardboard pieces from the Kickpuncher outfit and sets them on the floor. 

In Abed’s bag, he finds a plush stress ball shaped like the pig from _Toy Story,_ and Abed’s headphones and iPod. 

“I’m handing you a stress squeezer,” Jeff says, placing the pig in Abed’s hands. “And in a second I’m going to give you your headphones.” 

He puts the headphones on his own ears and picks a specific playlist on the iPod, turning the volume down low.

“Okay, I’ll be at my desk,” he tells Abed, who remains unresponsive. “Hickey is about to leave. I’ll be here until you’re feeling better. Everything is okay. I’m going to give you some music now.” 

He gently situates the headphones over Abed’s ears, takes one more look at him, and then walks over to where Hickey is sitting and watching.

“What happened to his head?” is the first thing that comes out of Jeff’s mouth.

“He was slamming it on the cabinet!” Hickey exclaims. “I couldn’t stop him!”

“Lower your voice,” Jeff says. 

“I cleaned it and bandaged it for him, you know.” 

“What, do you want an award?” Jeff glares at him. “Why don’t you tell me why the hell you handcuffed him to a file cabinet in the first place.”

Hickey gestures to the dried soap residue on his desk.

“He destroyed my drawings with his foam,” he says. “I was teaching him that actions have consequences.”

Jeff takes a deep breath, curling a fist behind his back and then letting it relax. Reminding himself that violence won’t solve anything, at least not right this minute.

“Tell me everything that happened. Start at the beginning.”

Hickey relays the evening’s events to Jeff, starting with the foam fiasco, and then moving on to some of the things he said to Abed and why. He tells him about Abed’s reaction, about how he freaked out and started screaming before shutting down. He tells him he doesn’t know what’s wrong with the kid.

“You know,” Jeff says through gritted teeth. “If you’d ever bothered to talk to any of us about Abed instead of just making your mind up about him on your own, we could have told you that this might happen. _He_ could have even told you that this might happen, if you’d been respectful enough to listen to him. And if you think he doesn’t understand consequences or punishments, think about how humiliated he’s going to feel when all this is over. Because he will. He always does.”

“He deserves to feel humiliated if he’s going to be throwing tantrums every time he doesn’t get his own way,” Hickey grumbles.

“Are you telling me,” Jeff says slowly, “that you think Abed _chose_ for this to happen? That he split his head open banging it on a cabinet _on purpose?_ Is that _really_ what you’re trying to tell me right now?”

“Fine.” Hickey folds his arms. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong with him, then.”

“There is nothing _wrong_ with him,” Jeff says fiercely. “We all react to things differently. Everyone has their own challenges. Even you.” 

“I don’t do _that,”_ Hickey mutters, looking over at Abed. “And neither do you. Neither do most people.”

“Abed’s not most people,” Jeff says, shrugging.

“You know what I mean.” Hickey’s face is bright red with frustration. “Just tell me what happened!”

“You handcuffed a student to a filing cabinet because he made a mistake!” Jeff is glad Abed has the headphones, because he can’t help shouting now. _“That’s what happened!_ You don’t get a pass just because you didn’t know that he’s autistic, or didn’t realize that he has previous trauma, or because you’ve ignored the fact that he’s having a hard time dealing with the loss of his best friend! Those things _don’t matter,_ because what you did _still wouldn’t be okay,_ even without any other factors. Even if he hadn’t ended up in the state he’s in right now. Sorry it made you uncomfortable or whatever, but what you did here was _never_ going to be okay.”

Hickey opens his mouth to respond, and Jeff cuts him off.

“Now, get the fuck out of here,” he growls, and, mercifully, Hickey does.

* * *

When Abed comes back into himself, he’s sitting in a chair, squeezing his slow-rising plush Hamm between his hands. He has his headphones on with soft music playing. He’s still in Hickey and Jeff’s office, but he notices that Hickey is gone and Jeff is at his desk playing on his phone. 

Abed takes off the headphones and walks over to Jeff, dragging the chair behind him. He sits down, and Jeff swivels around to face him.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “How are you feeling?”

Abed shrugs. His head is sore and he’s exhausted and embarrassed, and he’s not sure he can put any of that into words right now. Instead, he makes the ASL sign for “thank you” and hopes that Jeff understands. 

He does.

“You’re welcome,” Jeff says. “I hope I helped. I guess getting Hickey to leave probably helped the most, huh?”

Abed nods. Then he touches the bandage on his forehead and tilts his head questioningly.

“Hickey cleaned it up,” Jeff explains. “Do you remember how it happened?”

Abed nods again, wincing.

“Look, I’m really sorry that happened to you,” Jeff says sincerely. “He had no right to do or say those things to you, and I told him as much.”

Abed shrugs and tries to clear his throat.

“He’s not the first,” he whispers, his voice strained. “Won’t be the last.”

“Can I give you a hug?” Jeff asks. 

Abed nods and slowly stands up, and Jeff wraps his arms around him and squeezes tight.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Abed murmurs. “Why _are_ you here?”

“Hickey called me when he didn’t know what to do.”

“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” Abed says, and he feels Jeff hug him a little tighter.

“Anytime.”

“Jeff...I miss Troy.” Abed’s breath hitches and tears spill from his eyes, soaking into Jeff’s shirt. Jeff doesn’t seem to mind.

“I know,” he soothes. “I know you do. I do, too.”

They stand there in silence for a few minutes, until Abed wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath in and out.

“Why don’t I drive you home?" Jeff says.

“Okay. Thank you.”

Abed zones out a little in the car, and it isn't until Jeff parks that he realizes he’s brought them to his place, not Abed’s. He glances over at Jeff.

“I didn’t tell Annie about any of this,” Jeff says. “I thought you might want a chance to change clothes and decompress a little before she starts asking about what happened to your head. I can just take you home, though, if you want.”

“No, this is better,” Abed agrees. 

He follows Jeff into his condo, kicking off his shoes at the door and then ducking into the bathroom to change back into his normal clothes. When he’s finished, he sits down on the couch next to Jeff and pulls his feet up on the cushion. He takes the throw blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it tightly around himself. 

“So, how are you?” Jeff asks.

“Tired,” Abed sighs. “And pretty embarrassed.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.”

Abed narrows his eyes at Jeff. “Wouldn’t you be embarrassed if you had done something like that in front of someone like him?”

“Probably,” Jeff admits.

“Can I ask you a question?” Abed asks, turning to face Jeff on the couch. Jeff nods. “You gave me my headphones and something to stim with, right?”

Jeff nods again.

“How did you know to do those things? I know we’ve been friends a long time, but I don’t think you’ve ever had to do that before. And you even knew what playlist to pick.”

Jeff blushes and pauses a moment before speaking.

“I asked Troy,” he finally confesses, his eyes on the ground. Like he’s nervous about what Abed’s reaction will be. “Before he left. I asked him if he could give me some tips on how to best be there for you. Because I think usually he’s the one who helps you, and I didn’t want to leave-- I mean, I didn’t want you not to have--” He trips over his words awkwardly, eyes pleading with Abed to understand. “He did it for me and Annie both. Just in case. He told us what to do to help, and he wrote some stuff down.”

“Oh,” Abed says faintly, and he can’t come up with any other words.

“Was it…” Jeff pauses and clears his throat awkwardly. “Are you mad?”

“No,” Abed says quickly. “No, definitely not mad.”

“Did I do okay?” Jeff asks, and Abed can see his confidence wavering. “I mean…”

“You did great.” Abed gives him a small smile. “ Seriously. Thank you. For helping me, and also for asking Troy.” The last part comes out as almost a whisper.

“You’re welcome,” Jeff says, looking relieved. “Now, tell me. Are you okay?”

Abed looks at Jeff for a long time, but his eyes move toward the ground when he actually starts speaking. He plucks the Hamm toy out of his messenger bag and starts to squish it between his hands.

“I used to get shoved in lockers all the time in school, and it was scary and horrible because I would be trapped and I knew no one was coming to get me. It made me feel worthless and alone. And then I came to Greendale, and met you guys. Met Troy. When we were at InSpecTiCon, Toby put me in a model X-7 Dimensionizer and tried to lock me in, and for the first time, I didn’t panic. Because I knew Troy was coming for me.” He glances up at Jeff, who sort of looks like he might cry. “And that kind of made it a whole lot worse tonight when I got handcuffed to the filing cabinet, because all I could think was, _Troy isn’t coming for me this time._ Nobody was coming for me. Except then _you did.”_

“Abed…” Jeff begins, but trails off, and Abed interrupts him.

“The answer is no,” he says quietly. “I’m not okay. I wasn’t okay when Troy left, or when I ruined Hickey’s papers, and I’m definitely not okay after being handcuffed. But...you made me see that eventually, I probably will be. Because I’m not as alone as I thought I was. Even without Troy.”

“I’m glad,” Jeff says, his voice rough.

Abed scoots closer to him on the couch, wrapping himself tighter in the blanket, and Jeff pulls him into a hug.


End file.
